Immigration laws tear apart families

Saturday

May 25, 2013 at 6:00 AMMay 25, 2013 at 7:06 PM

By Paula J. Owen TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

As the nation prepares for Memorial Day to honor those who served in the military, U.S. Army veteran Miguel Leal has little rest from the war he is fighting at home, which he said is tearing apart immigrant families.

Mr. Leal was at the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, where he works as an organizer, on Friday and talked about his recent trip to the White House.

He and six other people from families affected by the nation's current immigration system had the full attention of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

The Cuban native, who traveled to the U.S. on a raft with his mother when he was 10, found out late Sunday he had been chosen to attend the hearing along with six other young immigrants from around the country who either received deferred action or who are the siblings and spouses of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Leal is the latter. Though he is a naturalized citizen and served eight years in the U.S. military and has a 7-month-old son who is a U.S. citizen, his family lives in fear of being torn apart. His Uruguayan-born wife Leticia Leal, 22, whose parents brought her to the U.S. when she was 10 on a visa, is here illegally, he said. She attended high school in Florida, where, unlike Massachusetts, students can get kicked out if they are here illegally, Mr. Leal said. It happened to his wife.

“A few months before graduation, they kicked her out and she was playing professional soccer,” he said. “She gave up all her life dreams. All the choices I had, she didn't get those just because of a piece of paper.”

Mr. Leal, 25, said there is no path to citizenship for his wife and her family because of what he calls the broken immigration system.

“Although I fought for our nation's freedom, our lives are more like a prison,” he said. “I believe the U.S. needs to change its course, or I see it ending up just like Cuba, where people are even afraid to talk. That's exactly what I see in my family, even when their rights are being violated.”

Since moving to Fitchburg a year ago, he has realized how many families are living in fear, he said. He estimates about 3,000 illegal immigrants are living in Fitchburg, yet very few come forward for help, he said.

“Around eight months ago, I started opening my eyes to see how my wife and family are suffering with no papers and live in fear every day,” he said.

“I wasn't OK with seeing people live their lives in fear.”

In his first week on the job at the Cleghorn Neighborhood Center, he said, he helped a 69-year-old man whose experiences as an illegal immigrant were devastating.

“I didn't believe the system was so broken and corrupted until then,” he said.

There are many more he wants to reach out to, but they are too afraid, he said.

“I see 20 here if I'm lucky,” he said. “People live in so much fear. I do this because of the system. People need to see us fighting back, and we need to put them on the spot to calm them down or they'll keep doing what they want with these families. It is inhumane. I understand if they are a murderer or something and wanting to deport them. I'll help you do it. No one wants that trash in society. But don't destroy families who are innocent.”

Despite his own situation, Mr. Leal said that when he learned the president and vice president were to be his audience, his thoughts turned to two immigrant families he is helping: Norma A. Velazquez, 43, from Fitchburg, and Gabriela V. Fernandez, 34, from Webster.

Both women's fiancÚs are being held in prisons waiting for deportation after living and working in the U.S. for years and raising their children here.

Ms. Velazquez's fiancÚ, Josve Rivera Martinez, 30, is a machine operator who came to the U.S. from El Salvador in 2005. He was pulled over by a state trooper near the Fitchburg exit on Route 2 on March 3 when the couple was driving home from Worcester with their 3-year-old son, Luis M. Martinez. Mr. Leal translated for the Uruguay native.

She said they were pulled over for no reason, and the trooper made them turn off the car for an hour despite the frigid temperature.

“The officer was sarcastic; he said, 'Oh, maybe the kid has a license,' gesturing toward the 3-year-old baby,” she said. He then followed up with immigration and arrested her fiancÚ. She has not seen him since, she said. She and Luis were dropped off at a coffee shop on Route 13 by the tow company who towed her car, she said. She is now struggling to support her five children on her own.

“He had no criminal record,” Mr. Leal said. “I've seen people with criminal records get away just because they have papers, but they arrested him right there.”

Mr. Martinez is sitting in the South Bay House of Correction in Boston with no court date, they said.

“He is in limbo, and the jail is collecting money from him sitting there,” Mr. Leal said. “It is a business.”

The other immigrant family Mr. Leal is trying to help that he talked to the president about is from Webster.

Ms. Fernandez is trying to halt the deportation of her Brazilian fiancÚ, Felipe Heringer, who is the father of her two children, Sophia G. Heringer, 2, and Nicole D. Heringer, 1, and who helped raise her son, Kevin M. Gonzalez, 12.

Mr. Heringer came to the U.S. at 18 after his 16-year-old brother died in a car accident, and has worked as a painter to support his family.

He was arrested May 2 in the kitchen of his second-floor Webster apartment in front of his crying children after police followed him and his family there, Ms. Fernandez said. She said she pulled over in a Taco Bell parking lot and asked him to drive the short distance to their home because she felt sick. When Mr. Heringer noticed a police officer across from the parking lot as he was pulling out, he panicked and drove through a stoplight, she said.

The officer followed them home and after checking for his license in their driveway, called for backup and two more cruisers pulled in, she said, blocking her in for almost an hour after they took her fiancÚ away. They did not allow him to get his passport, she said, and later fingerprinted him and called Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mr. Heringer is in a cell at the Bristol County House Of Correction and Jail in North Dartmouth with around 65 other illegal immigrants, she said, and she and their children are only allowed to see him through a large glass window at the jail. She said her family paid a Worcester lawyer $5,000 to defend her fiancÚ, and she successfully stopped his deportation May 16 just before he boarded the plane.

“I was watching the news last night, and they say pretty soon they will approve an immigration law,” Ms. Fernandez said. “Felipe called me last night from the jail and said, 'Oh, honey, so many people in here are so happy.' ”

Mr. Leal, she said, is her angel.

“He went to see Obama and told him what happened,” she said. Her mother, a Brazilian police officer, has also written the president numerous letters, she said.

Mr. Leal said that at the meeting at the White House, the president reiterated his commitment to passing a bipartisan, common-sense immigration reform bill this year, and made it clear that although the current bill is not perfect, it is an important step toward immigration reform. Mr. Leal and the two women say they are hopeful.

“In this system, there is always someone who gets lower treatment, first the Native Americans, then the blacks, then women … now it is the Latinos,” Mr. Leal said. “Our job is to bring to light the injustice that is happening.”

Contact Paula Owen at powen@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @PaulaOwenTG.

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